


What Mortals These Fools Be!

by Tiny_Dragongirl



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Gen, Rosie is all grown-up and she is a fan of Shakespeare, Shakespeare Quotations, Theatre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:19:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9845246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tiny_Dragongirl/pseuds/Tiny_Dragongirl
Summary: After all, it seemed only logical that Rosie Watson had become an actress.





	

Rosie Watson has always considered herself the centre of her father’s world. And her father’s best friend’s world. And her father’s ex-landlady’s world. And her father’s other friends’ world. Not mentioning the world of the different relatives of her father’s friends.

Since all the world’s a stage, it seemed only logical for her to conquer the boards.

 

‘Hurry up or we will be late and Rosie will kill us,’ John Watson warned his flatmate. Now that Rosie was all grown-up and moved into her own flat, not long before John and Susan separated, John Watson had decided to reside in 221B Baker Street again.

‘That would be some murder to solve,’ Sherlock Holmes answered, while fighting with his tie.

‘Bloody hell, Sherlock,’ John grumbled under his nose, before catching the troublesome tie and fixing it around Sherlock’s neck. ‘There you are. And now, let’s go. The show is on!’

 

Realisation dawned upon them attending one of Rosie’s high school performances. The play was _Hamlet_ (‘Seriously, Hamlet?’, muttered Mycroft, until Mrs Hudson elbowed him so hard that it took all his appetite for commenting); Rosie played Ophelia (of course) and she was quite good. She was wonderful on the performance’s own level – but even the most critical eyes could see that she was talented, incompetent directors and stilted high school students aside. The curiosity of that very play was that the director (basically an ambitious fool) had chosen to give Hamlet’s soliloquy to Ophelia.

Tell the truth, Rosie’s _“To be or not to be, that is the question”_ was awfully pathetic. Her _“To die, to sleep – to sleep, perchance to dream”_ reached a new level of horrible, until her _“The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveller returns, puzzles the will”_ became rather dull. That soliloquy didn’t really work – but Ophelia’s grief and descend into madness after her father’s death…! That was quite a performance. Proud fatherly tears welled up in John’s eyes, and Rosie-Ophelia downright made Mrs Hudson cry.

 

‘What took you so long?’ Mrs Hudson complained as the two men helped her out of her wheelchair and into the cab. Time might has left its marks on her and she might be growing stiffer every year, but she was adamant on attending Rosie’s every premiere until her dying breath. ‘I bet Molly and Martin are already there! We should take my car, you know.’

‘You sold your car eight years ago,’ John reminded her. ‘And then you stole it back for one last ride, under the excuse of helping Sherlock with a case.’

‘How dare you, John Watson! I borrowed it.’

‘Without the new owner’s knowledge,’ he replied, but she only shrugged, chin high.

 

After finishing RADA, Rosie debuted as Thomasina Coverly – and she made a quite fantastic job of it.

‘Damn, my daughter is an actress,’ John Watson gaped after the premiere.

‘And how did you deduce that?’ Mrs Hudson mocked him fondly.

‘No, I mean she can _act_. Like a real actress and everything. Like a real, talented actress.’

‘I have already deduced that eight years ago,’ Sherlock mumbled, but so under his breath that only Molly caught it; everyone else was too wrapped up in discussing how marvellous Rosie was, such an unprecedented talent in the history of theatre.

 

Mrs Hudson was right, Molly and Martin were waiting for them at the theatre, dressed up nicely.

‘Have you seen my brother?’ Sherlock asked casually after the inevitable greetings.

‘No, not yet.’

‘Maybe he won’t come,’ John suggested. ‘Rosie would kill him, tho.’

 

‘Why am I looking at this?’ Mycroft Holmes lifted an eyebrow – and also a piece of paper.

‘It’s a ticket.’

‘I can see that.’

‘Then take an educated guess.’

‘I don’t guess. I deduce,’ Mycroft corrected his brother, before giving in with an almost painful sigh. ‘It’s Miss Watson and Shakespeare – again. I can only hope this one will be better than that abhorrent Hamlet was.’

‘Alas, brother mine, at least it’s not Les Misérables.’

‘Miss Watson starring in a West End musical would be my utter undoing, I am afraid.’

Sherlock smirked. ‘Well then, let’s hope all those hours of babysitting when John and I went on a case and Mrs Hudson and Molly Hooper were otherwise occupied would prove fruitful, and she will never become a new Cosette.’

‘She could become whoever she wants to become. She is spoilt and ambitious, a highly intelligent young woman with adequate manners. She will be famous, she will be rich, she will get married half a dozen times, she will play any heroine from any play she covets… oh, yes, everyone will know her name in a very, very short time. Rosamund Watson is, so to speak, destined to become a bright star on the sky of British theatre.’

‘Brother mine, you are growing old. Your sentimentality is showing.’

‘This has nothing to do with sentiment. She's never in her life simply entered a room, she’s always made a dramatic _entrée_. When she was small, she practiced tongue twisters to amuse herself and all the people around her; when she was a student, she practiced French words to impress her teachers and everyone else.’

‘And yet, in this very room, she is not the one bandying with French words…’ Sherlock interjected, but his brother pretended not to hear him.

‘She has always been and always shall be a little showman,’ Mycroft concluded. ‘She just thinks theatre is her deserving.’

 

The first act went smoothly (apart from Mycroft Holmes never showing up): Rosamund Watson turned out to be a splendid Isabella, and the directing proved to be a smart, tasteful one. The whole business looked truly promising, and the crew already hoped that no pouting critic would think otherwise when sitting down to write the obligatory article about the opening night of _Measure for Measure_.

The family (which meant basically John Watson, naturally completed with the Holmes brothers, Mrs Hudson, Molly and – since their marriage – Martin) never visited Rosie during the intermission; their ritual consisted of a bouquet of roses sent in to her dressing room before the start of the play, paying her a short visit right after the end, and celebrating together some time later at Angelo’s.

‘Don’t tell me it’s a case,’ John warned Sherlock in a low voice, after he noticed the man slip away with his phone, right before the lights got turned on again and the audience began to stir, then returning with a thoughtful look on his face.

‘Mycroft had a heart attack.’ Sherlock stated quite simply.

‘God, Sherlock…’ gawped John, but his friend dismissed his outburst of concern with a wave of his hand.

‘He is fine; he took an aspirin and called an ambulance, he is resting now… but maybe, you know, I should visit him or something.’

‘Yeah, you’re right. Definitely. Visit him, yeah.’ John nodded, his brain working quickly. ‘Just give me a moment, okay?’

He disappeared from sight for a short time; Sherlock was growing really impatient when John finally returned with his coat in his hand – but after all, Sherlock Holmes always had a tendency not to show any patience.

‘You’re not coming.’

‘Then you’re not going,’ John huffed. ‘Of course I am coming with you.’

‘Rosie is going to see red.’

‘Rosie is going to be furious and affronted until she is going to feel guilty and remorseful for all her previous emotions. She might be a harpy, but she is an empathic one.’

 

The two man stood in the hospital’s corridor, when…

‘Be absolute for death; either death or life shall thereby be the sweeter….’

‘Rosie!’ John exclaimed. ‘Darling, what are you doing here?’

‘Hello, dad,’ the young woman kissed her father on the cheek, before giving Sherlock a quick hug (the man took it quite ungracefully). ‘I don’t understand why you two look so surprised. I’d like to remind you of all the occasions someone else had to pick me up from school because you rushed on a case. Not mentioning that one time when you, Sherlock, were simply beaten up… or the time when you, Dad, were almost run over. Yeah, and Sherlock, if I am correct, you got into a fight once or twice and got injured. Oh, and there was that case which resulted in Molly getting kidnapped… I wonder how I’ve never been kidnapped.’

‘Probably because half of the Secret Service kept an eye on you.’

Rosie ignored the comment. ‘And Dad, just for the record, I still remember my ninth birthday, when a criminal stabbed you in the leg and you ended up in hospital. This time? You two missed the second act, _he_ missed the whole play. And yet I came as soon as I could. How is he?’

‘Boring. He has fallen asleep,’ Sherlock answered in a flat tone.

‘Then I am just going to leave my flowers here, so he can see them when he wakes up.’ She held up a bouquet of pink roses. ‘I didn’t have time to buy some, so I brought these – they were actually meant for me, but hush, no one needs to know that.’

Her father frowned. ‘Wait a minute, I don’t recognise that bouquet. Who gave you…?’

‘John, it’s obvious: some young man gave it to her, whom she doesn’t particularly like.’

‘Wrong!’ She exclaimed almost cheerfully. ‘I really like him, thank you very much.’

‘You brought the flowers you got from the guy you like? What do you do to the flowers from the boys you don’t like?’

‘Dad, it was only logical. I only bring the best, I have got manners.’

‘Now I wonder where this places my bouquet…’

Rosie grimaced playfully. ‘Dad, you are just the worst.’

‘Maybe I should have mentioned before that my brother’s request was no flowers.’

‘And my request was: come to my premiere, don’t have a heart attack.’

Mycroft was sleeping, so they tried to move quietly and carefully in order not to rouse him.

‘For my heart is true as steel,’ Rosie whispered, and with that she placed the bouquet in an empty jug on the bedside drawer. ‘It’s Shakespeare,’ she added softly, after catching their confused looks. ‘It’s always Shakespeare.’

Mycroft stirred in his sleep but didn’t wake as the trio slowly tried to tiptoe out of the room.

‘Shit, the card, I left it among the damn roses,’ she cursed under her breath.

‘Language, young lady,’ John hissed, but she had already turned back and picked a card (with an absurdly long message written on it: "What's in a name? that which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet…" Now, would it? - M.) out from the roses swiftly. ‘Gotcha!’

Eventually they somehow managed to leave the room without waking Mycroft.

‘I am taking dad home,’ Rosie declared. ‘Good night, Sherlock. That chair looked awfully uncomfortable.’

John mouthed a silent ‘I am sorry for my daughter’, before letting himself be dragged away by the firm and unforgiving hands of Rosie Watson. ‘Night, Sherlock. Call me if you need… You know. Call me!’

‘Come on, dad!’

Sherlock shook his head as they disappeared around the corner. ‘Roses, really.’

 

“'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.” - MH

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by flannelgiraffe and sapphirae_escapist. Thank you!  
> Prompt by the Giraffe, even if she's not entirely pleased by the result.:P


End file.
